The fractals repeat themselves
The bridges burned,
scorched earth and smoking man
I’ll see them all again

“Is it ok when a married man feels you up on several occasions? And you don’t want to be touched & didn’t invite it? And you know his wife?”

And qualifying that pathetic question with the further information: “But when [I] bring it up to [our] mutual ‘guy friends,’ they say things like, ‘Well, I can’t say I blame him’ and ‘He’s a good guy.’”

This sort of thing has happened to me more times than you’d think.

When you’re an employee at a company that distributes pornographic material, of course you’ve signed a document stating you won’t sue the company for exposure to political incorrectness. So you keep your head down. You’re a good sport. You take it like a man.

You study martial arts under an amazing martial arts master. He’s been known to tell male students that they shouldn’t buy the cow when they can get the milk for free. Also, he encourages drinking after black belt class, so things happen.

In dark corners, away from witnesses, you have been told the following:

• “I’ve always wanted to make love to an Asian chick.”
• “I just can’t control myself.”
• “I know you told me you didn’t want a relationship, but it feels like my clinical depression is coming back.”
• “You’re so smart.”

And then things happen. Or is it that you let them happen? You don’t make a fuss, because these are your friends; these are your coworkers; these are your brothers. You accept that while there is no excuse for their behavior, neither will there be retribution. You don’t want to be kicked out of the family. You don’t want to be a drag. You don’t want to ruin it for everyone else.

Sometimes, I’m not even involved. When one of the guys is obviously two-timing two of your female friends, but all your other female friends say “I want to believe the best. I want to believe the real him is the ‘good guy’ we see in class. He’s just confused.” But no one makes a move to say anything to the women involved. Because…why? They should know better?

There’s no good way to tell a woman that her husband has been pawing you. And not just tonight, and you suspect not just you. She will hate you forever.

But it’s the right thing to do.

The curious thing about the experience is that I wasn’t at all in pain and was taken entirely by surprise. I did rep #4 without incident, and then rep #5 completely took me down. I was just on the floor with no forewarning whatsoever. This happened to me once before when I was trying out Crossfit. There’s a threshold where adding just 5 more pounds to the squat load painlessly but inexorably forces me to the ground. I’m thinking it’s not muscle failure (there’s no real discomfort), but a function of neurological adaptation (or lack thereof).

Also, I somehow managed to accomplish all this collapsing so quietly that NOBODY noticed, not even the guy in front of the mirror FIVE FEET AWAY. Come on, guys. Throw me a bone here.

I’m solving that old equation: Exactly
How to undo
The geometry that holds us
Suspended

The diagram takes
A cunning shape
Sharp to the touch,
and precarious:
A cat’s cradle tangled
A jangling mobile hanged
On a steel wire net

It’s an acrobatic trick,
Disarming this love
Trip one wire, and the shock
Will set the rest to humming
Vibrating our small constellation till it shatters

Holding my breath
I clip at your heartstrings
Hoping this whole thing doesn’t shake apart
If I’m subtle enough
To slip the knots
You may never notice me let go

Even now I can feel us
Fragmenting
Hurtling
Casting off the vestigial
and essential
Indiscriminately,
And without forethought
All the while attempting
A casual disregard
for regret

Take a giant step back, and it’s pretty much the same these days. Do the politics of humanity ever really change? I remember reading Douglas Coupland’s “Life After God,” in which the characters were all preoccupied with the bomb; that was how the end was going to come for them. My generation doesn’t concern itself with nukes (although they’re still very much out there), but with plagues and zombies. The images in Alan Weisman’s “The World without Us” are alternately heartbreaking and comforting. They always feel compelling and somehow right. It’s probably human nature to feel like we’re on the cusp of the end times. (Also, maybe I should stop reading books about plagues and zombies.) Like a fifteen-year-old, I have trouble imagining the future 10 or 20 years down the line. The center will not hold, or it will not hold steady. Empires do fall, yes, and history repeats itself. But how quickly? Would I have time to build a family, grow old, have grandchildren? The economic climate makes it increasingly unlikely that I could ever provide even the basic needs of food and shelter to anyone.

But, still. Whether the world ends with a bang or a whimper, tomorrow will be another day. So maybe I should get on with my life.

I want to say:
Have some perspective.

9.8 meters per second
Per second
417 meters
and 3,000 lives
Flash-burned.
 

History circles
and devours its own tail
Shedding scales of kaleidoscopic debris
Radioactive origami confetti
 

Witness the parade:
 

Walking northwards in sensible shoes on Central Park West
That was real.
A car radio stuttered with static and news
at the corner where I lent a cheap pair of sandals
to a woman in heels,
And we shared a bottle of water.
Hours later, the stragglers came home painted in dust,
Pale as ghosts,
Or a memory.
My memory
 
My kingdom for a heart.

According to its website, Moscot is a “New York City eyewear institution renowned for its iconic eyewear” but “remains, at its heart, a neighborhood optical shop” (since 1915). Moscot does indeed offer lovely, classy specs with pedigree, but for some reason the ground floor of the shop doubles as a performance space. I guess* Sol Moscot had two great passions in life: spectacles and rock and roll. As if to illustrate these noble yet oddly twinned obsessions, Moscot’s stage area sports both a “wall of fame” and artsy models of heads displaying eyeglasses. It’s clean and bright and absolutely charming.

*The following scenario is absolutely unsubstantiated by facts looked up by me, but I like to imagine it’s true.
 

Anyway, the show was awesome! Since the space was small and the audience limited, I actually got to see what was going on. This is the first time I’ve ever seen Doughty perform with Andrew “Scrap” Livingston, who plays something that Wikipedia identifies as a double bass. (In retrospect, a lot of popular music suffers from a distinct lack of double bass.) Both men are obviously true and gifted musicians with all kinds of skill. It’s so refreshing to see artists play real instruments and (in the case of Mike Doughty) sing with real vocal cords.

 
They performed a lot of songs from the new album (have you listened to it yet?), such as “Na Na Nothing,” “Day By Day By,” “Telegenic Exes, #2 (Astoria),” and others. They also played songs from Doughty’s previous work, including “Lorna Zauberberg,” which is my current favorite. (I vacillate weekly.)  The show had a companionable, easygoing but energetic vibe perfectly matched to the mellow Wednesday night.

Mike Doughty & Me: Guess which of us is which

 
This is the first time I’ve ever met any of my Twitter friends in person. Perhaps it is some sort of tipping point, because on Saturday I’ll be meeting another. Bentley set the bar very high for future Twitter friends. Bentley – Thanks so much for the invitation and the ride home!

The world is filled with reflections and shadows
That the mind draws into likenesses
So you imagine something like
An unborn twin
Or better half
Someone to share coffee with, perhaps
Someone to accompany you
On the long train ride home

But the emptiness you feel is just an outgrown evolutionary mechanism
That underpins the motivation
to survive
and produce
viable offspring
Contentment
is the death of striving
So the human condition
Is one of perpetual want
Deal with it

Too much caffeine to look before I leap to the fray
Tripping wires that conspire to awaken the dead
But the faithless need foxholes to lead them to grace
And you can’t hold me down

I need to run just one more lap round this block
Score on my body’s accounts one more notch
And will to be still my vitreous heart
You can’t hold me down

This exhaustion knows no bounds
Still I’m running down the hounds
And though I long to lay me down
You can’t hold me down

You know I’d love to take a nap
Keep myself calmly upon your lap
But you’re in an alternate time, and while it overlaps mine
You can’t really touch me at all

I’ll take a handful of vitamin pills
For the fruit I’ve forgotten
Has begun to go rotten
A large coffee will do for the thrills

I take a walk in the cool a.m. air
For once I’m making good time
While thin yellow sunshine
Grants grace to the world that is there

In a heartbeat it all becomes real
Objects snap to their places
For a moment their faces
Resonate with platonic ideals

Time stands still in the crystalline shine
Fragile and lit like a microscope slide
Suspended in its span, I briefly understand
It’s not enough for a life, but it’s mine

Clarity dissipates silently
The fine balance is lost
But I know it’s the cost
Truth returns if I just set it free